Movies first engage an audience for an entertainment purpose. A trip to the cinema or scrolling through a streaming service, viewers are spoiled for choice. The combination of movie ticket sales reveals how well a movie performed at the box office, but reception isn't just a numbers game. An audience can collectively dislike or be unanimously in love with a movie. Sometimes their level of pleasure is mixed, turning feelings into perceptions. A viewer can change his mind about a movie once he understands its connotations. Movies are open to interpretation, but some stories go over the heads of the audience.
10 (500) Summer Days (2009)
(500 days of Summer was seen as just another romantic comedy. Few viewers were aware that the genre was a perfect disguise for the film's detour from Hollywood expectations. The boy-meets-girl trope is there with stereotypes being changed because of the commentary on relationships. Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) both work for a greeting card company, where they begin a casual relationship. Tom's feelings for Summer grow, but Summer doesn't return the same romantic love for Tom. It turns out that Tom's lovelorn affections made Summer into an "ideal woman" in his mind, a woman he convinced himself was in a real, loving relationship.
9 Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Dawn of the dead could be classified as a survival horror zombie movie, but director George A. Romero has a different point of view. Similar to how his first movie, Night of the Living Dead was considered a critique of the racism of the 1960s (which for Romero was instead about the failure of communication in a time of crisis), Romero saw its sequel as an opportunity for a double meaning. The film is set in a shopping mall and serves as the last refuge for the survivors. Romero compared the zombies to people or shoppers who mindlessly and endlessly walk through stores like consumers.
8 Dirty Dancing (1987)
Dirty dancing is a romantic drama dance film starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. Swayze plays dance instructor Johnny Castle and Gray plays Frances "Baby" Houseman, who develops a relationship with Johnny while vacationing at the Catskills resort. More than a season of love and dancing, the story that gets forgotten is with Johnny's original dance partner Penny Johnson (Cynthia Rhodes). Penny gets pregnant by one of the resort's employees, so she decides to have an abortion with Baby's help. The film represents a woman's freedom of choice, especially since the film is set in 1963, ten years earlier Roe against Wade.
7 Tomb of the Fireflies (1988)
Tomb of the Fireflies is touted as an anti-war film, animated by Studio Ghibli. It follows two siblings who become war orphans in Kobe, Japan during World War II. They are forced to survive after the bombing of their city, with the last of their mother's money. The film shares the theme of the loss of innocence, but also touches on the generational conflict of being born at the wrong time and place. The young did not ask for a war-torn country. They also understand too quickly how their parents supported them when they were alive.
6 Fight Club (1999)
Fight club is notorious for its anti-establishment and consumerist bashing. His stance on individuality, albeit through a misplaced hypermasculine lens, forces radical change in a clinical, everyday world. That change comes in the form of a return to basics and a complete absence of comfort. The irony of the movie is that it's also problematic to strip the world of all the conveniences, some of which make people's lives easier rather than counterproductive or stagnant. The ending shows that extremism at both ends of the spectrum has debilitating consequences for the greater good and the individual.
5 Finding Nemo (2003)
Finding Nemo became one of the most successful Disney and Pixar animated films. The colorful marine life and clown fish were popularized by many fans. What they didn't know was that the story was much more than a boy separated from his family. Nemo represents the oceans of fish that are being removed from their habitat and ecosystems all the time, harming the environment. The brutality is understood with a group of fish trying to escape from their aquarium prison in a dentist's office.
4 Natural Born Killers (1994)
Natural killers is an ironic glorification of murderers. Mickey Knox (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory Wilson Knox (Juliette Lewis) were ordinary people until they became buzz-worthy celebrities due to their string of murders. By stirring up sensationalism and capitalizing on their publicity, bad news about murders piques people's morbid curiosity. Unfortunately, the film inspired copycat crimes among young people who wanted to emulate the popularity of committing their own murders. The film's painful social truth is that people are treated as significant events even when tragedy strikes them, and those who caused their tragedy are sources of twisted entertainment.
3 Taxi Driver (1976)
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Cab driver follows Vietnam War veteran Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) as he drives a cab at night in seedy New York. His PTSD, depression and loneliness create episodes of insomnia and existential crises. Wanting to change something in the crime-ridden city, he decides to convince and free an underage girl from her life of prostitution. When the audience hails him as a hero, a woman he briefly and unsuccessfully dated takes a lift with him. At her destination, she asks about the cost, to which Travis smiles and drives off. His sly smile at the end shows that he hasn't cured New York of its ailments, and he will continue to change over and over again, even if it puts him in danger.
2 The Radiant (1980)
The shining is ripe with fan theories that give the film a life of its own. One is that the setting, the Overlook Hotel, is haunted because it's built on a Native American burial ground. Others point to the main character's familial abuse, and possibly sexual abuse, citing the sexual imagery of which his son is aware. The film's most obvious and overlooked significance is its spotlight on alcoholism, which writer Stephen King struggled with while creating the adapted novel.
1 The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
The Wolf of Wall Street highlights the world of excess of former stockbroker and financial criminal, Jordan Belfort. Leonardo DiCaprio portrays the greed and drug-addicted lifestyle of a businessman who carried out fraudulent schemes and made millions from honest, hard-working people. The public thought it celebrated and lauded the debauchery and fast-paced life of a cult of selfish people. The amount of excess shown in the film was not to condone Belfort's actions, but to lessen the negative effects of using people, lying, cheating and stealing.
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